Mrs Reed
by Tuskface
Summary: This is a piece of English work I had to do for class. It's part of Chapter 4, only from Mrs Reed's point of view. Please read and review!


**Jane Eyre, Mrs Reed's Point of View – Chapter 4, Page 38-9 **

I sat now, alone save Jane, working the needle and thread, coarse in my hands, with a nervous finger and anticipation strong in my breast – I could feel a storm brewing in the room's quiet atmosphere. The plain, untamed, passionate girl's eyes were two heavy weights upon my head: I did not look up. However finally, I felt the time had passed for silent submission, and I must face the child – to see into her wide eyes, to bid her to bed in the nursery: her presence making me uncomfortable and anxious.

It was what I saw upon setting eyes on her which caused me to drop my work to my lap and press my back into the heavy red folds of the chair in which I rested. My hands trembled, lying against my knees, palms oiled in a cold slick of perspiration. No such expression had I ever seen on any face before, and it was all the more unexpected to be imprinted upon young Miss Eyre's pale complexion. Her stance was tall, erect, her hands balled into fierce boulders at her sides. Her eyes alighted with a spark of anger and another emotion as before unbeknown to me – lips pursed, muscles tensed.

'I am not deceitful,' said she, voice clear and hard, not all too different from the ice which clung to every surface beyond the impenetrable stone walls which encased us; 'if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not: I dislike you the most of anybody in the world except John Reed: and this book about the Liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies and not I.'

At first, I felt a flare of indignant refusal of her insolent speech. But then I questioned any truth in the blunt words which issued from her mouth – was Georgiana of a constant innocent honesty in presence of others? Surely she must be, for she was brought up to be as such...of course this is some imagined lie of this girl I had cared for, taken into my house and family with kindness: and this is how she repays me? I would not take her insulting talk. However, it was not only these thoughts which coursed through my veins – I could feel an uncanny fear raking cold fingers down my back. Her voice had the oddity of an adult's tenor, her words connected to the language of someone elder than she. Quietly I talked to her: accounting for her fierce anger, attempting to nullify it with calm words, to douse the flames burning in her stone heart.

'What more have you to say?' I asked, dreading her response, but trying to retain my tranquil composure. I glared into her eyes, afraid but unwavering, watching her shaking frame as she trembled with some raw emotion. It was as I looked closer that I realised just how much truth she talked – I could see how she leaned forward in fierce animation, but stood as far as possible from me so as to stay imposing to me. Her voice was proud and free as she spoke once more:

'I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.' This was one step over a line she should never dare to cross. How could she complain about my treatment of her? She was looked after, cared for by Bessie, by myself, and I as her lawful aunt had taken her in after her parents had died. Once more I felt a resentful hatred to the impudent child. She stood, stance suggesting conceit, while her eyes pierced right through me. I could not believe this talk, could not believe these claims. Conversely, I was nervous over again – what if she swore by this oath? what would people think of old widowed Mrs. Reed? the woman who had no mercy, no heart. I would be the gossip of all the town. My children would lack trust and credibility due to this child's tongue. I could not stand for this risk to my family – for I no longer counted her as part of my relations – to my children's heritage, their futures.

'How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?' I asked her, tilting my chin in an upwards direction, feigning confidence, a lack of fear. Despite this, I could not stop the tremors in my hands, whispering mutely against the red velvet of my arm-chair.

'How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? because it is the _truth_. You think I have no feelings and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back – roughly and violently thrust me back – into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day, though I was in agony, though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, "Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!" And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me – knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. _You_ are deceitful!' I stared wordlessly at the child after her unruly speech. Her eyes were wide, and an expression of exulted joy spread across her unattractive features. Her talk made me fear: made me fear word of mouth; made me afraid of sending her away. I felt and heard the stiff chafing of my work as it fell from my knees to the heavy carpet upon the floor. A silence, entirely profound, filled the breakfast-room. This girl was abnormal: something in her mind was acutely _wrong_. Lowood Institution would do her twisted view of the world good, would find the only decency in her black heart. My face twisted as I beheld her poised countenance, and I felt something similar to tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I avoided brushing away the water which was slowly gathering there, and wondered what on Earth to say to this impertinent, terrifying child, who talked as if she had outlived her age many tens of times. Eventually, after a pause long enough to make me believe she must apologise or do something of similar fashion – which, I am afraid to say, she did not – I summoned courage enough to speak forthwith her: and to ask for her forgiveness without doing so directly, if I could avoid it:

'Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you?-' although, there, I would have favoured a stronger phrase, '-Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?' Despite my best attempts, I could not bid her away with such words, such condolences to her. I could tell, before even she responded to my futile words, that her answer would be just as blunt as it happened:

'No, Mrs Reed.'; but still, I could not stop: I must find an answer for this strange glimmer in her eye – a tear, perchance? – an answer for all of these inane questions I spouted.

'Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend,' I said, trying to discount my hatred of the girl, and to saturate my syllables with affability and love. I knew my efforts were quashed by the freedom that imparted from her being. Her hands hung in mid-air, aside from her body, her head tilted back slightly, exposing the bare skin of her pale neck, which glowed red in the dying embers of the dulling fire. Her feet, I regarded, were stood at a shoulders-width apart, splayed slightly outwards. This position she had assumed illustrated perfectly her autonomy – as if bounds which had previously gripped her had been cut – and showed her assertive valour.

'Not you. You told Mr Brocklehurst that I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done.' Despite the prickling her oration caused on my skin, I knew she had no more time left to provoke me: she was to be sent away before this week had passed – and she was never to return here. I could not live with such a terror – with such an abomination – of the human kind. Her mind was sick, awry. Before she go ahead into a world she could not conduct, I thought it best for her to know herself, the reason for why her vows could pitch her into deeper waters than she had been anticipating – the reason why she would never be believed, audacious as she was:

'Jane, you do not understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults,' I told her. Still, notwithstanding the sincerity of my prose, an edge of pleading embedded itself into the phrase; and it came hardly as imperceptible. A fierce verge rounded upon her snarling mouth, as she contested what I had said.

'Deceit is not my fault!' cried she, voice high pitched and defiant.

Seeing her eyes, the skin on her face pulled away from her main features, taut, grimacing, burnt in my mind as if I had looked at something too bright for too long a time. They engraved themselves to the insides of my eyelids, and flickered in strange, glowing hues when I looked elsewhere. I could not stand another minute of this: she would go, that much I had ascertained. As for what to tell Brocklehurst of her, I knew not...she was uncivilised, a brutish child with no thoughts for any but herself. Her hair fallen from its clasp, tumbled to her shoulders, mousy-coloured and limp. Nonetheless, it seemed to rage about her head like wild-fire, flying about her like a conflagration, giving an air of dread to all who beheld her. I could not tell Mr Brocklehurst of this aspect of the girl's personality – for surely, then, I should never rid her noxious presence from under my roof: no school nor institution should accept her into their ranks with a disposition such as it was. I must endeavour in her riddance from this room, that I may think over these matters in my own private time. Yet I must still respond to her statement; never shall the day come that she shall win.

'But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow; and now return to the nursery – there's a dear – and lie down a little.' My words, although intended conclusive, seemed to be deemed enough for her to reply once again: her constant retorts were beginning to tire me: no more did responses come quick to my lips, no more could I concentrate on this contention more than I could toil upon my work which lay, like a flaccid body upon the carpet at my booted feet.

Her words as she leaned toward me once more were like hostile poison: 'I am not your dear;' she spat, venomously, 'I cannot lie down. Send me to school soon, Mrs Reed, for I hate to live here.'

To school she shall go, then: I thought, unconsciously voicing the words, as if to make the truth of them more real; 'I will indeed send her to school soon,' I muttered. My voice could surely not be heard by Miss Jane, who stood now, looking at the remains of the fire which had, not long before, been burning lively in the grate. Gradually, I bent perpendicular and retrieved my needle and thread, slowly rising from my seat and walking swiftly but silently from the room. This was, I hoped, the last time I would talk, s_ee_, even, this perverted child. No more would I worry about little Jane Eyre.


End file.
